Barabbas

Barabbas, written by Pär Lagerkvist, was published in 1950 and turns around the man who was released from execution in the place of Jesus and spends his time trying to comprehend the stranger's life and beliefs. Seeking but without finding his true beliefs, in lack of the capability to love and left to loneliness and anguish, Barabbas is the portait of the modern man.
During his career Pär Lagerkvist kept asking the big philosophical questions ("Why do we live?", "How should the world be understood?") over and over, but somehow without repeating himself. In 1951 he was rewarded with the Nobel Prize in Literature "for the artistic vigour and true independence of mind with which he endeavours in his poetry to find answers to the eternal questions confronting mankind".

Barnabok

Barnabok (Childs' book) was published in 1952 and may be considered as the first masterpiece of Lars Gyllensten. Gyllensten is a truly academic writer who has elaborated different values and perceptions of life in his different pieces. Above all, he estimate the priciple of "unfaithfulness", ie he is assuming different attitudes in his various books, he is a constructor and explorer of ideas. Initially, he was applauded but later his unfaithfulness was less associated to openness and more to a lack of principles (and in the 60s ideology became more important again). This relativism of Gyllensten was inspired by logical empirism of Vienna and Cambridgephilosophy. He also share basic ideas with Kierkegaard and existentialism. Barnabok is started in an artificial children's language and explores naivety. In the final scene the main character kills his girlfriends baby - he fails the attitude he was trying out.

Usually I enjoy clever constructions but so far it has been more fun/interesting to read about the talanted author (who has a chair of his own in the Swedish Academy, but didn't take part the last 15 years or so) than to read the results of his work. Although I am tempted to go on with the thesis and the anti-thesis in this trilogy where Barnabok corresponds to the synthesis.

1950s - Come out and play

During the 1950s the serenity in Swedish literature turns into a play with esthetics. The 50s is a time of freedom and contradictions. It’s pluralism, ironic romance and playfulness. Different strategies and voices are tried out. A new foundation for society after 2nd world war is sought. The young author is usually an academic who is practising the craftsmanship of creating literature. However, there is no “generation” of the 50s that steps forward. Authors to be mentioned are: Pär Rådström, Birgitta Trotzig, Willy Kyrklund, Sara Lidman and Lars Gyllensten.

The American New criticism is introduced in Sweden by the leading critic Bengt Holmqvist. Ezra Pound grows popular, Roland Barthes less read.

The Emigrants

Vilhem Moberg's the Emigrants (1949) is the first volume of four telling the story about a family (Karl Oskar & Kristina Nilsson with children) and some other persons from their native village in the South of Sweden that leave their home to live the American dream in the 19th century. They arrive in Minnesota and settles there. Robert, the brother of Karl Oskar, is the dreamer and visionary man that cannot settle but keep going, for gold in Klondyke. Moberg has kept closely to documents of the time, concious to create a realistic description. This is a true master piece of Swedish literature after 1945 and a classic that is a pleasure to read.

"When I chose a party of 16 people, who for different reasons emigrated to America, I did not know what would would happen to them or, of course, how they would change. It was to find out that I wanted to write the novel." /Vilhelm Moberg

Island of the Doomed

Stig Dagerman's Island of the Doomed (L'île des condamnés / De dömdas ö) from 1946 is filled with constant fear described in a language saturated with symbols. It is a defense of individualism and an attack against the use of ideas as a tool of terror.
Seven people arrive to an island after their ship was wrecked and here they meet their ruin in different ways. The people are in bad shape, impersonal outer casing hardly covers a core of fear. Nasty animals (birds, snakes, lizards) prevail over the island. The interplay between symbols, animals and dread is intricate and a theme a long the novel. The animal causes fear but is also the symbol of the fear and these aspects are mixed into one in the perception of the individuals. The seven people symbolize the man after WWII in a hopeless situation of guilt and repressed experiences.

1940s - Anguish

Anguish is the key word of the Swedish literature in the 1940s. Stig Dagerman (1923-54) is the Master. The serenity of human existence is a main theme. Relativism of values lead to a renewed focus on moral issues. What the 40-talists share in common is the fear of illusions and false notions. This drives through a reduction of the image of the human being and the harder scrutinized, the larger the chance to find the real, but this also increases the anxiety.

The literary 1940s end in 1954 when Stig Dagerman commit suicide and the last volume of lyrics from Erik Lindegren is published. Lars Ahlin finishes off the classic modernism by claiming that literature is language, not a medium. He is experimenting with the prose in a way that will be picked up by the constructivists later on in the 1960s.

70s literature in Sweden

During this weekend I have been busy with Swedish prose from the 1970s. The 70s hardly exist at all in Swedish literature as the 60s is considered to have ended in 1976 and the 1980s was a higher profiled period. In early 70s the publishing industry suffered from low/non-profits. Critics during the preceding years had claimed that fiction was all lie and crap. But eventually, this decade came with a renaissance for fiction and story-telling. Young authors left the political problems for existential ones. Prominent Swedish authors from the 1970s are such as: Jacques Werup, Ernst Brunner, Niklas Rådström, Klas Östergren.

I chose to read Lars Gustafsson, who is a highly academic author and a central figure especially in the 1960s . With Herr Gustafsson själv (1971) his authorship took a new path as he is more open about his own experiences and try to give form to the relations between the individual and society. At the same time it is an Inferno-journey as the one in Dante's Divina Commedia.



The second novel I chose from this decade was Ann-Charlotte Alverfors' Sparvöga. It is the first part of a trilogy about a little girl called Gertrud, nicknamed Sparvöga by her grandfather, who grows up in a big house in the countryside of Småland (the origin of Astrid Lindgren, Vilhelm Moberg, IKEA, my father and so much more....) together with parents and grand parents. The novel is a good example of a literary provinsialism that turns up during this period of time. It was filmed and shown in Swedish television late 80s but I have not found any English version. Marie Fredriksson (from Roxette) sang the lead theme.

Swedish novel after WWII

I decided to take the course of Swedish novel after 1945 at my old university in Lund. It's an awful lot of pages that gives few academic credits but a good knowledge of the Swedish literature. I have read some of the novels during the past years already but now I finally got my act together and got all the required literature from the libraries. Once started I was quite excited about it. It's so neat to sort decade by decade, look for the patterns etc.

Back in business

Oh, I haven't posted anything for a long time now. Travels, re-organisation at work and literature has kept be busy elsewhere than on the blog. However, last Saturday I was invited to a friend celebrating her successful blog and got some inspiration for a revival.